The widespread use of plants to decorate today's homes has created a need for aids to help the homeowner in caring for his plants. This need stems from the fact that the typical homeowner knows little, if anything, about detecting the conditions required to stimulate continued and healthy growth of his newly acquired plants. Thus, for example, the two main conditions for stimulating proper plant growth, i.e., the water and lighting conditions to which a plant is subjected are not ordinarily conditions which a homeowner can readily detect. This is especially true with respect to lighting conditions, since it is virtually impossible to accurately gauge by eye the degree of sunlight reaching a plant in a particular location. While subjecting a plant to different lighting conditions may be a way to arrive at an appropriate lighting condition, this method may often result in death to the plant before a suitable condition is found.
The above difficulties encountered by the homeowner are further compounded by the fact that there is now an extremely large variety of plants being sold for home use. Thus, the homeowner desiring some variety in his plant decor is faced with having to detect not only the above mentioned conditions associated with one type of plant, but the conditions, which most assuredly will be different, for other types of plants as well.
In copending application Ser. No. 520,862, filed on Nov. 4, 1974, there is disclosed an apparatus for use with plants which offers a partial solution to the homeowner's dilemma. More particularly the aforesaid apparatus comprises a meter which generates a reading associated with the water condition of the soil of a plant and includes means for relating this reading to a normal or desirable reading for the particular plant. While such apparatus thus substantially solves the homeowner's problem of detecting the water condition of his plants, it is of no help with respect to the lighting and pH conditions, which also, as above indicated, must be accurately controlled if healthy plant life is to be maintained.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for aiding the homeowner in proper caring of his plants.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus usable by a homeowner for generating indications corresponding to the lighting conditions to which his plants are being subjected and to provide a means for determining whether the generated indications indicate satisfactory conditions for plant growth.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which has the capability of selectively providing indications corresponding to both the water and lighting conditions of a plant.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus having the aforesaid dual capability which is designed to be as inexpensive as possible.